Visual ability and drug regimen: relation to compliance with glaucoma therapy

Compliance with pilocarpine eye drop therapy was studied in relation to different measures of visual ability and different features of the drug regimen. Neither visual ability, nor complexity of the drug regimen nor side effects were significantly related to the patients' compliance with their pilocarpine therapy. Nevertheless, non-compliance was significantly more common among patients who regarded the eye drops as very unpleasant than among patients who did not. This indicates that non-compliance is related to the patient's perception of side effects and/or negative attitudes to the treatment.